Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The church of Notre-Dame d'Argenton-Notre-Dame, built in the middle of the 12th century, illustrates Romanesque architecture with its full hanger and its nascent warheads. Its bell tower, erected on the cross of the transept, dominates a cross plan formed by the chapels Saint-Sébastien and Sainte-Émerantienne, to which is added a third more recent lateral chapel. The building, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, preserves traces of its community vocation through its murals and stained glass paintings offered by the faithful, reflecting a collective piety characteristic of rural churches.

In the 16th century, the chapel of Saint-Étienne de la Fautraise was attached to it, founded in 1559 by Étienne Regnaut and endowed with income from the closeries of Soulioche and Ardanne. The temporal imposed three weekly Masses, announced by the gobets of the big bell. The church also housed reliquaries of silver and a cross of the same metal, inventoried in 1699 by the bishop of Angers. Two bells, melted in 1711 by Michel Guillaume de Craon, were blessed that year, while in 1777 the laying of the first stone of the high altar marked a major renovation.

On July 10, 1779, a relic of Saint Flora, offered by Madame de Quatrebarbes via the bishop of Nantes, was solemnly translated from the church of Saint Michael. Despite a condition deemed good in 1802, the building suffered a fire at the beginning of the 19th century, losing part of its roof and walls. The 1906 inventory, marked by crowds, revealed a rich furniture heritage, including three 17th-century retables and 19th-century lambris, witness to its architectural and liturgical evolution.

Masses founded by local benefactors, such as Renée de Possard or Étienne Guillot, canon of Jarzé, highlight the church's place in the social and religious life of the village. His role as a place of worship and assembly also appears in the gifts of stained glass by families, domestic and children, creating an interior decoration comparable to a community chapel, according to Abbé Angot. These elements illustrate the central place of the building in the collective memory of Argenton-Notre-Dame.

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